What Are Restrictions?

If you have an iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad, then you’re running iOS – Apple’s operating system for mobile devices. iOS doesn’t have ‘Parental Controls’ built into it in the same manner that its older sibling, OS X does, but (like brother and sister) they share more than a few traits.

Parental Controls on other computers focus on having managed user accounts through which to allow, disallow and modify features. iOS devices do not currently have the capacity to add more than one user – they’re better used as personal, single-user devices, so instead of Parental Controls, we have ‘Restrictions’ on iOS.

General Restrictions

General Restrictions requires a ‘Restrictions Passcode’. This does not have to be the same Passcode you use to normally lock your device, but it needs to be easily remembered by yourself, and not shared with the person or persons you’re using the restrictions for. If you forget your Restrictions Passcode, the only way to disable restrictions on your device is with a factory reset of your iOS device to a new device state.